O, How I Miss The Nuge

I’ll admit it. Back in the day, I was a huge Ted Nugent fan. Stranglehold? Free For All (baby)? Takes me back to the 70s, a friend’s basement, sitting in a circle passing a joint, laughing and digging the music. A simple, silly, and supremely friendly time.

That was then, of course; and this is now, and we are left with our memories and the (mostly) clandestine and mischievous knowledge of having a slightly misspent youth and an almost stereotypical experience of the 70s.

The music was a trip: six- and seven-minute songs to groove to, drum solos, guitar solos, expansive jams, opportunities for musicians to climb out on to a musical limb and bring you along.

Music moved on, of course, as the arts must: to disco, to dance music, to the electronic drummer and synthesizers, to punk.

OK. I can handle that. I own quite a bit of it, as a matter of fact. Things change. People grow up, get jobs, pay taxes, throw real dinner parties, serve decent liquor and form opinions based not on what their friends think but what they think.

Which brings us back to The Nuge. Ted Nugent.

He had a reality show not long ago – and who knows what it was called. I had to look it up. It was just that forgettable – morons competing for some reason for something. Who cares? It stunk. Nothing I found out about him was anything I wanted to know about Mr. Great White Buffalo. In fact, I found out that he was a patriarchal ass. I could’ve done without that.

As we said in the 70s: Burn!

What’s my point?

That I miss my illusion. All I ever needed to know about Ted Nugent was that he was/is an excellent and rockin’ guitar player. He was my childhood, my teenage years, my rock-and-roll fantasy.

My apologies to The Nuge, but I never wanted to know the real him. I just wanted to be in the room while he played.